per capita

American  

[per kap-i-tuh] / pər ˈkæp ɪ tə /

adjective

1. by or for each individual person.

   income per capita.

2. Law. noting or pertaining to a method of dividing an estate by which all those equally related to the decedent take equal shares individually without regard to the number of lines of descent.

---

per capita British  

/ pə ˈkæpɪtə /

adjective

1. of or for each person

---

per capita Cultural  

1. A Latin phrase literally meaning “by heads,” and translated as “for each person.” It is a common unit for expressing data in statistics. A country's per capita personal income, for example, is the average personal income per person.

---

Etymology

Origin of per capita

1675–85; < Latin: literally, by heads

Example Sentences

During her campaign, she pledged to reduce crime and fix the prison-overcrowding problem in Arkansas, which has the nation’s third-highest incarceration rate per capita behind Louisiana and Mississippi, according to federal data.

From The Wall Street Journal

Denmark is one of the world's wealthiest countries in per capita terms.

From Barron's

GDP per capita was flat in the fourth quarter, as the overall increase in GDP was matched by a similar increase in New Zealand’s population.

From The Wall Street Journal

The top five states with the highest income per capita, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and California, also have the highest share of passport ownership in the country.

From Salon

“So per capita food production has risen by 50 per cent.”

From The Wall Street Journal